With baseball running out of players, the league is planning to announce that the All-Star Game will now just be a Cubs intrasquad scrimmage.

Well, maybe not.

But we are now up to 16 players having pulled out of the game, some for valid reasons, many for reasons that are more telling about what the All-Star Game, and the fans, mean to them.

Derek Jeter has played every inning for nearly a week. But he’s too hurt to play in the All-Star Game. For one inning. Or one at-bat. Or even just to show up and wave to the fans who voted to see him. After he announced that he wouldn’t play in the All-Star Game, he played more games for the New York Yankees anyway.

As for the Cubs’ scrimmage, my Plan B, well, that won’t work, either.

Aramis Ramirez, Cubs third baseman, found out Sunday that the NL team needed him, a spot had opened up because of an injury. The league asked him to play.

No thank you, he said. He was going on vacation with his family.

“It was the last day, so I already have plans for my family,” Ramirez told reporters Sunday. “It’s just too late.”

Too late for what? To change an airplane ticket to accommodate the fans, who pay you the $75 million contract you’re playing out?

Come on. It is not difficult to change a flight reservation to say thank you to the fans.

Recommended On The Web

It’s true that the All-Star Game is just an exhibition, but it’s a game for the fans, when the fans choose who they want to see. The truth is, fans should be picking the backups, too. It is meant for fun, and should have nothing to do with home-field advantage for the World Series.

Bud Selig gave home-field advantage to the league that wins the All-Star Game because he wanted to make players care about the game. It didn’t work, and was a mistake. But give Selig credit for trying something.

But you can’t legislate player-interest.

The problem isn’t that the All-Star Game is meaningless. Meaningless exhibitions have been a blast for fans in sports for years. The NBA’s All-Star weekend. Plenty of golf exhibitions and fun-tournaments, especially those including Tiger Woods (Remember the Battle at Big Horn?). Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King. Maybe the NFL’s Hall of Fame game will be saved if the lockout ends. Face it, bowl games that aren’t in the BCS don’t carry much meaning. Monday’s Home Run Derby.

It’s all just for fun. And some of these events come and go, if fans lose interest. Maybe people are losing interest in exhibitions in general. But the All-Star Game still is relevant because the fans say it is. The game’s ratings are falling, but are still enough for Fox’s interest. Fans still go to the game, and to the events surrounding it.

The problem is that the fans don’t mean enough to the players. Jeter has been to these games for years, and might be the face, and definitely the conscience, of Major League Baseball. But if he was healthy enough to play for the Yankees in a pennant race, then he is healthy enough to play in the All-Star Game for five minutes. True,

he’s 37 now, and his body is starting to break down.

But this isn’t exactly four days of hard work. Fly out on Monday: Talk to press. Sign autographs. Wave at fans during Home Run contest.

Also, Alex Rodriguez is needs minor knee surgery. He’s doing it now because he’ll be out at least four weeks, and the first few days of his recovery now won’t cost the team any games. Some pitchers threw on Sunday, too, and can’t throw again this quickly.

It’s understandable if players have real injuries. Their team has to come first. But Tampa Bay’s David Price is out with turf toe, yet he was able to throw with it on Saturday. Jeter can play. Mariano Rivera threw over the weekend despite the triceps injury. And then there’s Ramirez.

Look, it can’t just be too inconvenient to say thank you to the fans.

This is their moment. Not yours.

So this isn’t meant to put down the All-Star Game. In fact, it’s the opposite. This game can still have the excitement that something special is happening away from the dog days. No, this is to take to task the players who don’t understand who they are here for. Some players get it, of course.